Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Federal Court of Appeal Law Clerks


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was Merge to Federal Court of Appeal (Canada). Wal ton  Need some help?  16:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Federal Court of Appeal Law Clerks

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Fails notability guidelines, likely created as a vanity article. Rizla 20:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, court law clerks are nonnotable (I should know, I was one). NawlinWiki 21:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as unsourced. &mdash;Resurgent insurgent 2007-04-19 22:08Z 
 * Keep, already a precedence of keeping law clerks as notable. See Supreme_court_law_clerks. 91.165.141.53 07:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment there is a substantial difference in notability between the Clerks of the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal and those of the Supreme Court of the U.S. Rizla 22:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment strongly disagree. The USSC is only one step up (ultimate as opposed to penultimate) from the Federal Court of Appeal in their respective jurisdictions. Both are appeals courts with national prominence whose clerkships have extremely competative selection criteria.  It seems more an issue of US-bias than of notability. 91.164.128.68 11:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * &emsp; Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached  &emsp; Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, WjBscribe 23:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this can be merged into Federal Court of Appeal (Canada), unless there is something more to be added than a list of names.  Citi Cat  04:30, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge per CitiCat. The article is just a list of names with no other information. -- Cy ru s      An dir on   [[Image:Flag_of_Indiana.svg|24px]] 13:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge per above. As just a list of names, there's no 'there' there. DarkAudit 17:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I would agree with merging if there was any information other than names. I still strongly believe the names should be removed. There is no published list of clerks and no way to verify who joins every year besides personal knowledge (original research). Besides the fact that the individual clerks themselves are non-notable people - there is no published material on the significance of their position in the same manner there is for USSCC clerks. At most there should be a few lines in the FCA article stating the number of clerks each judge has and their role. Rizla 00:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Good point. Is there a source for the list?  Citi Cat  17:54, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, it might be worth noting that the courts website doesn't think the clerks names are important enough to mention  Citi Cat  17:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment However, the Supreme Court of the United States website does not provide a list of clerks or the names of judges to whom they have been assigned either. I note that the policy on original research states, "The original motivation for the "No original research" policy was to prevent people with personal theories attempting to use Wikipedia to draw attention to their ideas."  Facts are not ideas.  The only source for facts will often be primary sources.  Once again from the original research policy: "An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims."  Primary sources need only be verifiable -- the information here can easily be verified by a simple telephone call to the court house.
 * That may be so, I'd be willing to concede the point that someone could concievably verify the list via personal sources or phoning the court, etc... I do not really want to get into a technical discussion about wikipedia policy semantics. However, there is still a matter of whether the clerks are really notable, which I strongly believe they are not. I do not see the need or the purpose to outline the names of the clerks in an encyclopedia. No matter how prestigious or competitive it may be to obtain the clerkship within the legal profession they are still of minimal significance outside of the court. I believe the crux of most peoples argument for keeping the page is based around the precedent set by the USSC clerks page. With respect to that the USSC clerks have multiple substantial articles written about them and their impact on the court (See refs.) in large circulation papers, not to mention the established prominence previous clerks usually go on to. In comparison to Canada, not even the Supreme Court of Canada clerks have had any articles written about them or their impact on the court. Let alone the Federal Court of Appeal clerks, which is of much less significance than the SCC. It seems to me the clerks are of the same notability as say, a legislative assistant to an MP. Rizla 23:53, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Reply Rizla, the problem with your argument is that it takes an effect for a cause. The lack of an article that elaborates on a topic cannot be a reason for deleting an article on that topic.  It can only be a reason for expanding the article that already exists.  As for information on the role of clerks at the Supreme Court, you may want to check out the biography of former Chief Justice Brian Dickson. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.103.145.50 (talk) 15:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC).
 * Delete A rather pointless, unsourced list of legal clerks that will need to be updated on a yearly basis. Most judges on the FCA are not notable enough to warrant their own articles, which means that being their assistants conveys (next to) zero notability. If White House interns collectively don't merit their own article, then neither should FCA clerks. Caknuck 07:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.